Tone Brekke (Post Doctoral fellow, Center for Gender Research, University of Oslo,
Norway):
THE TRANSNATIONAL TEXTUAL CULTURE OF NORWEGIAN WOMEN
SUFFRAGE, TIBLISI 2014.
I. INTRODUCTION. NATIONALISTIC MYTHS, 1905 AND THE NORWEGIAN
WOMEN’S MOVEMENT.
Norwegian anniversaries have a tendency to become part of a mythical and
nationalistic construction of the Norwegian as something that is inherently driven by a
special capacity for freedom, independence and a deep skepticism towards authorities
and hierarchies. This year’s 200 anniversary of the Norwegian constitution (1814),
and last year’s 100 year anniversary of Norwegian women suffrage (June 11th 1913)
are often cast as examples of such historical, nationalist myths.
Our account of the Norwegian women’s struggle for suffrage—and with that our
history of the Norwegian women’s movement ––is often retold within a similar
framework—a related national myth about the special status of the Norwegian history
of the development and policies of gender equality.
Part of this nationalistic version is of course owing to the fact that the women’s
collection of the 280 000 signatures took place in connection with the referendum
against the union with Sweden in 1905, and that this is seen as an instrumental event
in giving the women the right to vote.
The journal of the Norwegian women suffrage movement, NYLÆNDE, exemplify the
entanglement of nationalist tendencies and the women’s movement in this period.
Frequently, this journal strategically exploited the nationalistic sentiments around
1900. The issues in this period frequently contained articles titled: “Norway’s cause is
the cause of Norwegian Women.” The debate whether to establish a national protest
day for Norwegian women—a debate that took place long before the international
women’s day on the 8th of March was established, exemplifies similar sentiments.
Since 1899 the labour women had organized a separate protest march on the
Norwegian independence day, or constitution day on the 17th of May. This was,
however, highly disputed within the women’s movement. Many argued that although
it was important to use the Norwegian constitution day to underline the need to
expand paragraph 50 of the Norwegian constitution to include women, this was seen
as problematic on a symbolic level—on accounts that this would be to claim male
notion of “rights” that would just reinforce the exclusion of women. From 1899 and
onwards, almost every single issue of the journal Nylænde contained arguments pro
and against this protest day, and attempts at launching an alternative: Many argued in
favor of a “Camilla Collett day” and that the cause of Norwegian women should be
celebrated on the birthday of the author that many saw as the first to articulate a
Norwegian feminist vision: on 23rd of January. The proponents of this specific day
had to admit that the icy January weather in Oslo might be a problem. The most
popular proposal, however, was to arrange a protest day on the eve of the religious
holiday, Whit Sunday (or: pinseaften) Significant figures in the movement, Gina Krog,
Betzy Kjeldsberg and Aasta Hansteen argued in favor of this—and this question
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emerged as a favorite topic of the journal in the following years. Gina Krog, editor
and founder of the Norwegian association of women, even wrote poems and psalms
about emancipation of women and the eve of whit Sunday. At stake in this discussion,
however, was more than just a narrow understanding of the suffrage issue as a
Norwegian one. The debates reveal that “Pinsenat ,” or the eve of whit Sunday
became a popular idea for several reasons:
Pinsenat was in one sense nationalistic and mythical, grounded on the happy, pietism
-“light” of the Dane, Grundtvig. This day was associated with the recreation of the
new Eve, the New Norwegian woman. But this utopian, imaginary feminine form was
one that transgressed national boundaries. One of the important arguments was
precisely that the women’s movement should use this day because it transcended the
Norwegian independence day, and that it therefore perhaps could be a starting point
for organizing an international women’s protest day!
The journal Nylænde, its contributors and editor, were conscious about the need to
integrate the political struggle for the vote with a textual, rhetorical public culture that
should serve as a basis for developing women’s voices in a wider sense: not only did
they publish speeches and reports from the political world, but also poems, literary
reviews and even musical scores. Several issues started with musical scores by the
composer Agathe Backer Grøndal. Political representation had to be imagined also
through cultural and poetical means. This enterprise was, however, not understood as
a Norwegian one, but rather as an international, textual exchange.
This raises an implicit question: what is the relation between the literary field and the
organized women’s movement, and in particular the suffrage movement? What role
did the transatlantic Anglo-American textual culture play in the development of the
idea of women’s suffrage—and the other way around: how did this ”political” textual
practice influence literary culture in this period? Did the Norwegian women’s
movement in this period understand itself as continuing the American feminist
pioneer Abigal Adams’ insistence from the 18th century: that the vote and political
rights had to be written—not only as a legal text or within the genre of political
resolutions, but imagined, tested and articulated through literary and aesthetic means.
My point is that below the seemingly nationalistic surface, the Norwegian movement
was really is engaged in transnational concerns—and that this engagement is deeply
integrated into the textual cultures, especially the journals, that fueled the Norwegian
movement.
2. ”HISTORY OF WOMEN SUFFRAGE (1881- 1922): WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE AS
A TRANSATLANTIC, RHETORICAL PROJECT.
The American Suffrage movement’s own self-documentation project: The history of
Woman Suffrage (HWS) served as a significant point of departure for the rhetorical
culture that the Norwegian women’s movement developed.
This monumental work --published in six volumes, from 1881-1922, was edited by
Elisabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B Anthony. In the end it consisted of more than
2000 pages that recounted and documented the history and activities of the movement.
The History was self-financed (they had problems financing editions and
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conventions) and the editors thought it was very important to disseminate this work.
Both Stanton and Anthony brought with them copies of the HWS during their travels
in Europe (as exemplified by the copy received in Norway).
Their editorial strategies were consciously transnational. European reports and letters
from different countries, organizations and persons were “pasted” into the text, which
they also the same time put an effort into disseminating these texts back to Europe,
hoping that this would help vitalize the suffrage movement on the other side of the
Atlantic. The growth of modern feminism, as they saw it, was founded on the export
and import of texts. These suffragettes underlined the significance of reading and
reflection as the main tools in bringing about political change.
In fact, the last volumes of HWS became more and more focused on giving a detailed
description of the activities and tracing the political development in the different
American states and the European countries (through reports from their national
organizations).
Rhetorically speaking, the HISTORY OF WOMEN SUFFRAGE is a polyphonic text, a
multi-tuned collage—composed by different genres and different national
contributors. But the work is also to a high degree self-conscious of this particular
form of putting together a somewhat unconventional “history” and can therefore be
seen as an example of how a social movement textualizes itself as part of its attempt
at self-legitimation.
The rhetorical is usually understood as practical rules or advice for the art of public
speech and the HISTORY OF WOMEN SUFFRAGE can be understood as part of such
a rhetorical project in a wider sense. The history contains:
-Self-conscious experimentations with literary and textual forms: the struggle for
women’s right to vote is thus not only a question of formal political rights and logical
arguments.
- The text is self-conscious about the lack of a political language and voice –– and
thus thematizes the connections between linguistic and political representation.
- Women who spoke in public – were often accused of having become a public
woman—a prostitute or labeled with mental instability, or hysteria. HISTORY OF
WOMEN SUFFRAGE showed through examples – and even gave recipes for how
women should act in public.
-The detailed minutes from meeting and conventions emphasized both the affective
ability of women in the art of convincing the listeners—but also underlined their
orderly, rational procedures of these meetings—consciously probably mimicking the
procedure of a constitutional assembly.
But the text is also rhetorical in a more fundamental mode—understood as a
performative attempt at creating a collective, transnational political identity though
through different narrative agencies. For the editors of HWS, Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Susan B. Anthony and eventually also Matilda Joselyn Gage and Ida Husted Harper—
all central figures within the organized American women’s suffrage movement, the
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history evolved as a part of attempts at documenting and transforming their own
activism and personal experiences into an official, political and historical narrative. A
significant part of this was the construction of a wider collective transnational identity.
III TRANSATLANTIC AND TRANSNATIONAL INFLUENCES ON THE NORWEGIAN WOMEN’S
SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT?
In this trans-national historical project, we also find textual traces and interventions
from the Norwegian movement. The editors of the History of Woman Suffrage
communicated with several persons in the Norway. In an anecdote they mention
having received a greeting from the Norwegian queen, queen Maud. An important
contributor was Camilla Collett .
In the description of the Norwegian situation, the History of Women Suffrage
mentions the parliamentary representative and one of the founders of Norsk
Kvindesagsforening (the Norwegian Association of Women’s Rights), H. E. Berner,
but also, ”Miss Cecilie Thoresen, the first female student to matriculate at Christiania
University” (in 1884). The opening of the University of Oslo/Kristiania for women is
then presented as a part of a global, historical and teleological process driven by a
deeper historical force—the emancipation of women—that aimed at its manifestation
in women suffrage or right to vote. Significantly, History of Women Suffrage also
mentions the journal Nylænde as part of this endeavor.
Central figures in the Norwegian movement aligned them selves with the American
struggle and with the anti-slavery movement, and in this sense also the historical
narratives of American movement. In some ways, Nylænde further developed the
rhetorical strategies of the American history of women suffrage—they too
emphasized and showcased women’s ability to speak in public, in an orderly and
representative manner (as ex. by their publication of numerous speeches by women),
and when they finally gained the vote, Nylænde explained how the voting ballot
worked! But equally important: Nylænde also continued the idea of the necessity of
developing a literary culture in order to create a political voice.
Whereas the Americans suffragettes worked to expand the Declaration of Sentiments;
the Norwegian women’s movement had a more ambivalent relation to the Norwegian
constitution: it was seen as connected to male concept of liberties. Instead a more
visionary rhetoric was needed to reform and invent a new form of femininity: the new
Norwegian Eve…
Finally, the exchange—or transatlantic metaphors were used consciously – not only to
argue for the export of Norwegian ideas of gender equality, but as a way of
combining a mythical version of Norwegian history with a visionary discourse of the
new Norwegian woman. The Vikings and the Polar-expedition emerged as a favorite
example: the imagining of something new and impossible—namely women’s
political rights—was not really new at all.
The metaphor chosen by Aasta Hansteen (who famously had exclaimed that America
is the best place on earth for women) in Kvinden i det nye norge (The Woman of the
New Norway)—is that of the Viking Leiv Erikson who only seemingly discovers a
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new land, America, that had been inhabited all along. The image of the polarexpedition exploited as similar rhetorical trope: the clearing away of hundreds of
years of ice, repression and misogyny. Commenting on her authorship and struggle
for the women’s cause, Camilla Collett likened her authorship to that of a polar
expedition—the process of finding a seemingly new, but really a forgotten or hidden
land, through the painful process of breaking open thick ice. And, inspired, as she so
often was by Collett, Gina Krog also described the project of the Norwegian
association of women’s rights that of an expedition (an “opdagerfærd”).
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